The Sustainability Mindset

The Matrix Map—a powerful tool for nonprofit strategic decision-making Nonprofit sustainability lies at the intersection of exceptional impact and financial viability. The Sustainability Mindset offers nonprofit professionals and board members a step-by-step guide to move your organization towards this intersection. As outlined in the bestselling book Nonprofit Sustainability, "The Matrix Map" is an accessible framework that combines financial and programmatic goals into an integrated strategy. In this next-step resource, the authors detail a rigorous process to develop a meaningful Matrix Map and engage leadership in setting an organization's strategy. Nonprofits that thrive in today's environment are adaptable with a clear understanding of their impact and business model. This book offers nonprofit boards and staff a framework to do so. Drawing on their in-depth experience, the authors provide an easy-to-follow process complete with tools and templates to help organizations visualize their business model and engage in strategic inquiry. The book provides a variety of illustrative examples to show how the Matrix Map works for all types of organizations. Nonprofit executives and board member are sure to benefit from The Matrix Map analysis. Offers step-by-step guidance for creating a Matrix-Map, a visual representation of an organization's business model Helps organizations assess how each of their programs contributes toward their desired impact and their financial bottom-line. Filled with compelling examples of how The Matrix Map helps nonprofits with strategic decision-making Written by the coauthors of the groundbreaking book Nonprofit Sustainability This comprehensive resource will give any nonprofit the framework they need to make decisions for sustainability and the templates and tools to implement it and help leaders address the challenges inherent in balancing mission impact with financial viability.

As we increase our awareness of the planetary challenges and how they intersect with the discipline or profession we choose to focus on, we have put our attention on the external forces and impacts. What remains untouched however is the set of beliefs, values, assumptions, mental processes, and paradigms that we hold and share: our mindset. But how do we change a mindset? This book is the first to introduce the 12 Principles for a Sustainability Mindset, presenting educators with a framework that makes it easy to include them into teaching plans and lessons of any discipline. Written in a very clear and practical way, the book provides examples, checklists, tips, and tools for professionals and educators. It transforms the development of a much-needed mindset for sustainability into an accessible, fun and intuitive task. The book is written with educators from a variety of disciplines in mind, including but not limited to management educators, coaches, and trainers. No other book comes close to providing such a well-organized and solid way of starting to shift our mindsets in the direction of sustainability.

Praise for NONPROFIT SUSTAINABILITY "This is much more than a financial how-to book. It's a nonprofit's guide to empowerment. It demystifies mission impact and financial viability using The Matrix Map to provide strategic options for any organization. A must-read for every nonprofit CEO, CFO, and board member." —Julia A. McClendon, chief executive officer, YWCA Elgin, Illinois "This book should stay within easy reaching distance and end up completely dog-eared because it walks the reader through a practical but sometimes revelatory process of choosing the right mix of programs for mission impact and financial sustainability. Its use is a practice in which every nonprofit should engage its board once a year." —Ruth McCambridge, editor in chief, The Nonprofit Quarterly "Up until a few years ago, funding and managing a nonprofit was a bit like undertaking an ocean voyage. Now, it's akin to windsurfing—you must be nimble, prepared to maximize even the slightest breeze, and open to modifying your course at a moment's notice. Innovative executive directors or bold board members who want their organization to be able to ride the big waves of the new American economy must read this book." —Robert L. E. Egger, president, DC Central Kitchen/Campus Kitchens Project/V3 Campaign "Most nonprofits struggle to find a long-term sustainable business model that will enable them to deliver impact on their mission. Thanks to Jeanne Bell, Jan Masaoka, and Steve Zimmerman help is now in sight. This book offers practical, concrete steps you can take to develop your own unique path to sustainability without compromising your mission." —Heather McLeod Grant, consultant, Monitor Institute, and author, Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits "At last! An urgently needed framework to prepare leaders to meet head-on the persistent twin challenges of impact and sustainability. This is a practical tool based on good business principles that can bring boards and staff members together to lead their organizations to sustainable futures." —Nora Silver, adjunct professor and director, Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley "Together, Jeanne Bell, Jan Masaoka, and Steve Zimmerman equal wisdom, experience, and know-how on sustainability and lots of other things. Buy, read, and learn from this terrific book!" —Clara Miller, president and CEO, Nonprofit Finance Fund "Wisdom, experience, and know-how. Buy, read, and learn from this terrific book!" —Clara Miller, president and CEO, Nonprofit Finance Fund

This volume examines the importance of leadership in developing an effective sustainability strategy. It defines the sustainability mindset and surveys the primary motivations, conditions, or environment(s) that cause leaders to embrace sustainable practices. As described in the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8, embracing the sustainability mindset will lead to greater productivity and promote economic growth. Organized into themes of organizational operations, leadership competencies, and leadership practices, the chapters, written by contributors representing global perspectives, tackle topics such as strategy, culture, and leadership styles in developing a new form of mindfulness for leaders as well as organizations. Recognizing the need for accelerated change in organizations as well as society at large, this book presents scholars with a framework for establishing a mindset for sustainability to foster much-needed transformative leadership.

When asked for the definition of mental health and fulfilment, Sigmund Freud had two words: lieben und arbeiten, love and work. In this book we will find how 16 business leaders brought together their compassion, their caring for others and the world, with their work. True, only on rare occasions are we able to meet the person behind initiatives that made a positive impact on the world, even less have an in-depth view into their feelings, concerns, hesitations, doubts and most intimate thoughts. What is seen publicly is the initiative, the impact on the bottom line and the community, or sometimes on the environment. Yet it is their _personal_ stories that can be most inspirational, since they draw our attention to the fact that amazing achievements start in simple ways, with just the thinking of one individual. And when we find out that the "exemplary individuals" have many very "human" aspects that we identify with and find in ourselves, it brings us closer; and, particularly, it may even trigger in us the question: If she could do it... I wonder what could _I_ do? The interviews, however, were only the beginning of the journey. The lessons of the interviews made it possible to identify how we can all develop a sustainability mindset: in other words, the thinking and the being that can take us from breakdown to breakthrough on this planet. Each one of us can play a part in leading the change; in fact, we are already playing a part – we are just not necessarily aware if that is the part we would like to play, or aware that we choose the change we are contributing to unfold. Part I presents the 16 leaders, including a summary of their story and their initiatives. Part II goes a little deeper, as you will find two dimensions that were not obvious but which underlie the way these business leaders championed the initiatives: the Thinking and the Being. Part III explores why sustainability change is so slow, and addresses the "elephant in the room": the values and beliefs that anchor our Western Weltanschauung, or worldview. Part IV addresses the alternatives that we have to convert the unsustainable values into opportunities that will permit humanity to thrive and to break through the obstructions that prevent us from stasis. Finally, Part V takes us beyond the tipping point, and presents us with an opportunity to evolve as humans developing a new way of thinking and being on this planet. This transformation is so radical and significant, that the author calls it the Big Bang Being.

With an expanding awareness of the challenges of sustainability, featured more in the daily news than in higher education textbooks, scholars and faculty have been called to connect their syllabi to the ‘real world’. This book doesn’t just offer the ‘why’; it offers the ‘how’ through presenting the definition and model of the ‘sustainability mindset’ to help educators frame curricula to facilitate broad and deep systemic learning among current and future leaders. A sustainability mindset is intended to help individuals analyze complex management challenges and generate truly innovative solutions. The sustainability mindset breaks away from traditional management disciplinary silos by integrating management ethics, entrepreneurship, environmental studies, systems thinking, self-awareness and spirituality within the dimensional contexts of thinking (knowledge), being (values) and doing (competency). This book is aimed at professors, faculty members, instructors, teaching assistants, researchers and doctoral students in higher learning management education programs. Chapter contributors are all teaching professionals from programs around the world, who have been doing research and creating curricula, assessments, tools, and more for the students in their classes, and the book will be globally applicable.

As we increase our awareness of the planetary challenges and how they intersect with the discipline or profession we choose to focus on, we have put our attention on the external forces and impacts. What remains untouched however is the set of beliefs, values, assumptions, mental processes, and paradigms that we hold and share: our mindset. But how do we change a mindset? This book is the first to introduce the 12 Principles for a Sustainability Mindset, presenting educators with a framework that makes it easy to include them into teaching plans and lessons of any discipline. Written in a very clear and practical way, the book provides examples, checklists, tips, and tools for professionals and educators. It transforms the development of a much-needed mindset for sustainability into an accessible, fun and intuitive task. The book is written with educators from a variety of disciplines in mind, including but not limited to management educators, coaches, and trainers. No other book comes close to providing such a well-organized and solid way of starting to shift our mindsets in the direction of sustainability.

Organizations all too often create impressive strategies but fail at implementing them. Based on research with over 750 organizations, Shift conceptualizes execution with energy management in mind to offer discrete capabilitie that will help leaders "shift" into more sustainable and dynamic execution practices. With the importance of orchestrating balance between stability and flexibility at the core, Shift is written in four parts - identifying execution barriers, filling gaps, removing distractions, and differentiating execution leaders that are capable of driving improvement. Most novel is the introduction of a performance indicator, called the Cost of Execution (COx), that quantifies execution capabilities and challenges. Shift includes real case studies and describes a comprehensive approach that will help organizations satisfy the business demands of today and adapt to embrace the challenges of tomorrow.